Vacation!

Ahhhh! Tomorrow, we are heading for the beach. For an entire week, if Eli can handle it. We are going to the OC (of the East Coast) to Josh's parents' place. They'll be there and his sister too. I am incredibly excited to pass Eli off whenever I feel like it. Actually, I'll be lucky to get any time with him the whole week besides feeding considering how his grandparents are SO incredibly into him. But that'll be okay. Maybe I finally won't feel guilty about not paying enough attention to him and I actually plan to take some work with me. Hopefully I can take advantage of the extra help.

Speaking of work...I turned in a draft for my second diss chapter today. G is supposed to get the intro chapter back to me today...I'm thinking that's not gonna happen. Doesn't matter all that much at this moment though as I have another one to work on while I'm out of town/when I get back. It just feels good to be getting a tiny bit farther along. I hope there aren't too many more drafts after this round...

So, no posting till I get back, I imagine. Here is one of Eli in his special sun hat to tide you over until you get to see him in full beach gear (imagine this hat plus bulging belly and matching swim trunks!!! Perhaps minus the insane expression. He gets so mesmerized by the stupid camera! And, yes, that stupid outfit says "Lil slugger" and has baseball playing bears all over it. It also is always falling off one of his shoulders like he's in Flashdance or something. But I'm saving the good outfits for our trip. Evidence to come...)

No more drama

So, of course, as soon as I say that breastfeeding is going well, there has to be SOME sort of drama, right? Here's what happened: Friday at about 5am, post-feed, Josh changes Eli's diaper and notices that his poo is black. Hmmm...what does that mean? The book says, Your baby probably had an iron supplement. Um, no, he didn't. Then it says, If not, call your doctor. We fire up the computer and read that it's possibly blood in his stool.

So...to make a long story short...we finally get a dr's appt. He did have blood in his poo and is diagnosed with colitis. I am told it's probably b/c of milk protein in my diet and that I should cut dairy out. Um, I've been doing that for weeks. So then we decide maybe it's soy, which I had cut out for two weeks but then recently added back in. Of course, previously, I'd been eating milk and soy and never noticed black poo before. But who knows. So now I can't eat much of anything. Also, we cut out the probiotic supplement we'd been giving him. Josh and I are kind of convinced that he is being pissier lately b/c of that. Awesome. So it's either colitis or colic that we get to deal with. Eli's poo, however, is back to normal, we discovered at a follow-up/regular 2 month appt on Tues, so at least something is working. And his dosage of prevacid has now been doubled b/c he is even more officially a GIANT. He is now 16 lbs, 1 oz. (We were told he is the size of an average 6 month old. Dear LORD!...however, he was 16 lbs THREE oz on Friday, so now I am freaked a little that he's losing weight...I am crazy, I know!) Anyway, maybe the double prevacid is helping. He has been screaming less today - though he did a serious spitup this evening. Argh.

Also, he got 5 vaccines (only 4 shots though) on Tuesday. He was NOT happy. Poor kid! But, to make him feel better, we put him in this ridiculously cute outfit. Not sure it helped him, but it helped me!



And, here's another picture. I initially was not a fan of this outfit. I have tried to make things gender-neutral for Eli, but when people give us gifts, there's not much I can do. But, OMG, this outfit kills me. He looks so fricking cute. If he didn't hate having clothes put on him/taken off of him, I'd just play dress up with him ALL DAY!

Happy 2 Month Birthday, Baby Eli!

We've survived two entire months! Whoa! And I think things are getting...dare I say it...a bit better breastfeeding-wise and crying-wise generally. His post-feeding screams are not as bad as they were. Actually, they are much better, for the most part. And I can even nip them in the bud on occasion if I catch him starting to spazz early enough.

He still has crying jags at other times in the day, but I think I have discovered that he has been sleep deprived or something. Either that or he is now hibernating for the summer. He's been sleeping quite a bit during the day lately (and doing quite well at night too so far - we are LUCKY with that). I have decided that if I see a yawn, it's time to put him down. If he's crying a bunch, I go with vacuum sounds until he falls asleep in my arms and then swaddle him up good and put him down. I actually managed to turn in a newly revised dissertation chapter draft to G yesterday. It was a miracle (hopefully such a big miracle that I don't have too much more to do with it...please...). A different chapter's revised draft is due next week. We'll see if I can repeat the miracle.

When he's not sleeping...he's looking dapper like this:


Back to Eli though...he is doing some smilies from time to time. I can never seem to catch them on film/video though b/c he is MESMERIZED by cameras. So you'll just have to believe me.
He has also learned to stick his tongue out at me or something. Sometimes he does that instead of smilies, it seems. I got him to follow a rattle and a set of plastic keys with his eyes all over the place. That is new and exciting even if it doesn't sound like it is! He is still a giant. We think he weighs about 16 lbs. That is INSANE. He is pretty much fitting into 6 month clothing already. We'll find out for sure about his weight next week at the pediatrician.

Here is the closest picture to a smile that I've got. Also, he looks like a football player, which cracks me up. I suppose in baby world, he is of football player stature, but it is weird to think that Joshie and I could produce anything football-y at all:


Does that look like a smile?

We are going on our first overnight visit this weekend to Grandma and Granpa's in Delaware. It's just one night so it'll be practice for our 10-day (if Eli can handle that) trip to the beach the following week. Then there'll will be FOUR people to look after him at all times in addition to me. Ahhh! That will rock!

Here he is in his birthday pj's right after doing some really great smilies...